Ron Goldman on Radio tonight (tomorrow)

[glongley]

Sorry for the very late notice, but if anyone is up late tonight...

Ron Goldman (psychologist, author of Circumcision:The Hidden Trauma, and author of the website www.circumcision.org and www.jewishcircumcision.org) will be interviewed on Rick Barber's late night radio talk show on KOA, a Denver radio station at AM850, at 4 am Mountain Standard Time, in the wee hours of Wednesday, March 28.

Although Rick's show is local, it is broadcast all over the country and to
parts of Canada, and he often has nationally known guests. Ron Goldman will be on a segment from 4:00-5:00 am entitled, "Ethics and Efficacy of Circumcision." It is a call in show, so it would be great to have many of you listening by your phones to call in as appropriate.

One of our Colorado NOCIRC members was instrumental in getting this to happen.

If you can't get it on the radio you can listen on-line at:
http://www.850koa.com/pages/listen.html

Gillian

[carriebft]

I just saw this post now so I couldn't listen, but how did it go?

[glongley]

Yes, I'm really sorry about the late notice. I hope some of you did get to llisten in.

I was listening in, and I actually thought Goldman did quite a good job. It was nice that the interview was so extended (about 35-40 minutes in segments) and relaxed, with a neutrally supportive attitude from Rick Barber, the talk show host.

I thought Goldman spoke calmly and rationally, while covering a lot of
informational ground, and for the most part handled questions well, I thought. To me he came across as an informed educator, rather than an outraged activist. I thought he geared his explanations appropriately to teaching the general public who might not have a medical vocabulary or be at all familiar with any of the concepts. I even picked up a few nuances from him on how to answer questions in the future, like how to handle questions about potential medical benefits (acknowledge briefly some of the areas people may have heard about, emphasize that medical organizations do not recommend it, and then shift the frame to set it in the context of all the other concerns - risks, sexual, psychological, ethical).

He did get in several plugs for the new sensitivity study, which is very good, covered the history of circumcision, made numerous comparisons to the protection that females have but not males, covered the cultural bias and lack of information and informed consent, was able to describe the trauma of the actual procedure, discussed circumcision in the Jewish context, and of course highlighted many of the psychological aspects. He also got in several plugs for his website and his book.

The question that I think he was the weakest on was the one about how can circumcised men heal, which got into vague generalities about therapy, but didn't mention restoration. Also, he did not make any mention of some of the complications of circumcision, nor add anything to the sensitivity study about how the foreskin functions in sex. I think this was in part due to the questioning emphasis that Rick Barber had which dwelt a lot on psychological aspects, and the activities relating to Genital Integrity Awareness Week (this coming week) and the MGMbill, the latter of which Ron is not directly
involved with.

There were a few call in questions, none antagonistic, one from one of our Colorado NOCIRC members who said how much reading Ron's book had meant to him in coming to terms with his feelings about his own circumcision, and gave voice to men's feelings and rights about this.

So all in all, I thought it was a great show, and surely educated a lot of people who were listening, and did some awareness raising - perfect for Gential Integrity Awareness Week. I hope others of you in other cities will consider facilitating getting the topic of circumcision on talk shows. There are lots of people in the movement - like Ron, Marilyn, Steve Svoboda (ARC), George Denniston (DOC) - who have been on talk shows before and would be willing to be a guest.

Unfortunately, I do not think there is any way to listen to the show other than live. But if anyone made a copy of it, I hope you can make it available to others somehow.

Gillian